Palestinian activists and officials slammed an Israeli attack on the Islamic Cemetery of Kalounya village in western Occupied Jerusalem.
The Israeli Antiquity Authority staff members razed Muslim tombs in Kalounya Cemetery and pored over stones at a two-meter depth wreaking havoc on graves before they covered them with sand.
Head of the Supreme Islamic Committee Ekrema Sabri said: “A human being dead or alive has the right to dignity. Digging up graves is just illegitimate and deemed unacceptable by all monotheistic religions.”
He added that the Cemetery is part and parcel of the Islamic heritage in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Fatah leader Hatem Abdul Kader also dubbed the assault “a war crime and a barbaric felony perpetrated by the Israeli occupation authorities.”
He said the move violates the sanctity of dead Muslims and makes part of an Israeli Judaization scheme aiming to wipe out the inherently Islamic character of Occupied Jerusalem.
Head of the Jerusalem Center for Socio-economic Rights Ziad Al-Hamouri also said: “At a time when the Israeli occupation has been assaulting our dead people knocking down our homes displacing us from our native towns and subjecting us to massive pressure the world has remained mum as if we were the real terrorists and aggressors. Israel is just pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes.”
Activist Ali Abu Sheikha from 1948 Occupied Palestine spoke out against Israel’s incessant attempts to eradicate the cemetery picking up again what the British Mandate had already embarked on from 1923 to 1937.
He added that the IOA closed the Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment in Kalounya for speaking up for Islamic holy sites and cemeteries.
Kalounya native Firas Sabah said the locals will file a lawsuit to the court to stop such violations and aggressions on the cemetery and on Islamic holy sites.
